Today, instead of discussing religion or politics, I have decided to go back in time and narrate an incident which at first I did not find funny.

The year was 2013 and our SSCE results were out. I decided to go to Ilasa to see my friends. I had this friend called Dare Oke, a plump boy who seemed to roll instead of walking(we are still in touch). He, alongside I, decided to visit some girls (sisters) which I’ll call X and Y.

Being parochial, we hatched a plan to tell their mother that we had forgotten our WAEC registration number and we think that her daughters would help us remember them. Back then, this sounded like a master plan for we were sure that X and Y’s extremely smart mother will not suspect that we had other motives. The plan looked perfect; it was time to visit some ladies.

When we got to the house of X and Y, we could not garner the courage to knock at their door; so, we spent almost 30minutes rehearsing our speech, removing the parts we felt were wanton and also trying to embellish our speech with a plethora of high-sounding words because we knew that their mother was a tough one. We had to appear saintly.

At last we summoned courage and knocked, a maid opened the door and guess what?? We met them (the whole family) eating dinner. X and Y looked at us, really astonished that we had defied reason and common sense to visit them for we all knew quite well that their mother was a tyrant

The look we got from the mum could have frozen hell. In fact, I saw her eyes glint with danger. My heart melted. Maybe we were wrong to visit. We were in for it.

After dinner, their mum stood up and walked majestically across the room with the sure-footedness of an alpha wolf marking its territory. She was the embodiment of affluence, and also had this aura of charisma. To aptly describe her, she is the modern-day Madea in terms of sheer size.

God, she was huge! I don’t know why but for the first time I felt small, really tiny, and my nerve left me. I forgot all that we planned to say as the reason for our visit. In fact, the only thing that was still keeping me there was the fact that the doors were locked. Immediately she asked the first question which was “Why are you here?” I quickly blurted out that I was just escorting Dare, and in fact, I had no business there. Who WAEC registration number help?

😃😀😃

Time flies, I wish I could meet that mum again, let her see a Dozie void of fear, an alpha male.

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I’m fortunate to have both of my grand parents alive. I’ve spent the past weeks with them and I have a story to share with you.

My grand parents told me about the 1918 influenza pandemic (Spanish Flu)- caused by a virulent type A virus. It is documented that about 21 million people died from the disease over a 12-month period, and perhaps 200 million at the end of the pandemic.

Grandma said it was called “OKORU OGBUE”. A centralized Igbo name would be “OFEE OGBUO”. The name implied that the disease was very contagious and that infected individuals most often died from the disease.

The disease was introduced into Nigeria by passengers and crews who arrived overseas through ships. Within months it was all over the place- every community in Nigeria. Anecdotal reports from my grandparents and others showed that every community lost between 50-80% of its inhabitants.

Documented reports, though, showed that about 500,000 Nigerians, out of a population of then 18 million, died in less than 6 months, and between 50 and 80% of the population was stricken. Undoubtedly, majority of the cases especially in villages were not reported.

On September 14th, 1918, a ship, S.S. Bida, arrived in Lagos, Nigeria. Some of the passengers were suffering from the influenza. They had boarded the ship in Accra, and on arrival in Lagos, passed on the disease to Lagosians.

The first cases were documented on 23rd September and a few days later the disease spread inland through the railway, appearing in Abeokuta on 1st October and Ibadan on the 5th of the same year.

On 14th October, the disease was brought to Onitsha from Lokoja and in a week or two the entire town and villages in the Onitsha province were thoroughly attacked.

From Onitsha, the epidemic spread to Asaba and all the towns of Western Igboland, causing much panic and consternation.

A report of the Roman Catholic Mission at Asaba stated that the people of Asaba, disturbed by the rumor that influenza was causing havoc, gathered each morning at the Post Office, expecting to hear from relatives who had emigrated to affected places in search of wage labor. One morning, while a large crowd assembled at the Post Office, news arrived that influenza had broken out in Asaba itself and everyone ran home to isolate, the crowd was dispersed. In a few days, Asaba was thrown into mourning as virtually every family had someone to bury.

From Asaba, the influenza spread to Agbor, appearing there on 19th October.

Also from Onitsha the epidemic spread eastward, appearing at Owerri on 25th October, Okigwe and Enugu-Ngwo on the 28th and Aba on the 30th.Furthermore, the epidemic, having affected the towns on the Eastern Railway, began to diffuse eastward, appearing at Ikot-Ekpene on or about 1st November, Obubra on the 4th, Afikpo on the 5th, Abakaliki on the 7th, Ogoja on the 11th, Obudu about the 11th and Ikom on the 13th.

Every family had someone to bury. Grandma said: “After returning from a burial, all those who buried the dead were required to remove their clothes and burn them before coming into their homes….. But in a few days, they too will get the flu and would die….. When someone die, people cried not because the person died, but because others in the family will die after the burial and so on”.

Traditional medicine men and women died after treating a sick person. Non of the remedies seemed to have worked. But when our grandparents learned that isolation and quarantine was the remedy, the disease was contained.

It was like a war. None of our grandparents went to the markets or farms, because no one does that during a war. They starved, they didn’t visit relatives, they ate cassavas and cassava leaves, they improvised, the government DID NOT provide palliatives, they too, DID NOT EXPECT the government to provide palliatives. They passed through the pain of watching their dead rot away without a burial, only then was the virus contained in 1919- one year after!

Today we have another major pandemic, very, very similar to that of 1918. We know better today, we are more enlightened, we have developed medical sciences. We know that our government SHOULD provide palliatives, but if because of corruption they REFUSE, we should borrow a leaf from our grandparents. Let’s pull through.

You see, the rich and famous brought the virus always, but the poor are more vulnerable and will be hit the worse, because the rich will stay at home and the poor will go out to be killed by the virus or shot by the reckless officers. But whether this pandemic will last less than a year, a year, or more than a year depends on us.

This is like a war. Stay at home to save lives. Obey the Government.

Most importantly, you see those who do not believe that the virus exist, and those who think there should be no lockdown, avoid them because even our uneducated grandparents were wiser than they are.

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And to you my forgottenI am fourteen hours away from youWhere every chapter reminds me of my unread pagesA season of discoveries in truth

I will soon reunite with youLike age on youthMy heart is filled with joy my forgottenFor I am ten hours away from you

This is where it all beganThe climax of my fallThe seed of reckless demandsI journeyed into growth and slaveryStorm and nice dreamsJust to reunite with you.

I am now six hours from youBelieve me when I say;Like the dead and the graveI will assuredly unite with you

For I have gone through blows and tempestI have destroyed my love for harvestJust to reunite with youFor certainly I will

For I am now two hours from you.But this time is too small to unite with youI’d rather start this journey againHasten my steps so I could have a year saved.

So my forgottenBe patient with the processFor I am neither an angel nor the sunI have no super power but my songI could sing you into trances of my conquered kingdomsThen you could see all I’ve doneTo reunite with you my forgotten.

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Advancing my academic climaxI always felt it was as easy as it flowed from my mouth.With my infant knowledge I felt I knew it all.

I conquered all barriers set before me.I felt like an encyclopedia of knowledge.I anxiously anticipated taking on any challenger.I felt fortified, I felt divine.

Soon I ascended the temple of survivors.I wasn’t alone as I shared a similar fate with others.The guardians welcomed us and spake to me in proverbs saying:“Excuse may not mean Excuse.Convict may not mean Convict.Many have come this far.There’s no going back.You’ll survive, most definitely.”

The capital letter U and small letter u are similar but different.Butter has two of the letter T.Neither must be pronounced to honour the schwa.An absent dot after “A Boy” renders it invalid.Air systems are studied to forge sounds of harmony.I took these to heart and proceeded.

After advancing in my quest; The guardians spoke again:“Learn new proverbs and discard the ones learnt earlier like we never said them.”Humbled by these words,I withdrew from my high horse and thought to myself.No wonder the guardians sang:

“We’ve all come this far.There’s no going back.You’ll survive, most definitely.”

Well to my fellow travelers this will be our song as survivors:“We’ve all come this far.There’s no going back.We’ll survive, most definitely.”